


A Bag of Chips

by AdrianaintheSnow



Series: Labeled [44]
Category: Sanders Sides (Web Series)
Genre: Background Logicality - Freeform, Gen, If there's any trigger about food proceed carefully, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Not eating enough, Not exactly sure what the correct tag is, References to food scarcity, Using food restrictions as a punishment
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-24
Updated: 2020-09-24
Packaged: 2021-03-07 23:00:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,124
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26625577
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AdrianaintheSnow/pseuds/AdrianaintheSnow
Summary: Food had always been athingfor Virgil. Someone reaching over and taking something from his plate causes a reaction.
Relationships: Anxiety | Virgil Sanders & Creativity | Roman "Princey" Sanders
Series: Labeled [44]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1616662
Comments: 46
Kudos: 341
Collections: fic to read when I have bad feelings





	A Bag of Chips

“You literally just said you like Sun Chips better than fries,” Roman said the moment Virgil stepped away from the counter.

“Yeah,” Virgil said. “So?”

“Well, then, why didn’t you order chips instead of the fries?”

Virgil frowned. “It comes with fries, and it’s $.25 extra to switch.”

“So?” Roman asked. Virgil just squinted at him. “Ugh, never mind. Next time, I’ll give you a quarter. Let’s just go get our drinks.”

They did and then went to look for seats. They ended up compromising by sitting at a table in the corner. Virgil had wanted one of the small booths on the side that he could smash himself into and hide from the rest of the patrons. Roman was, apparently, a monster who liked sitting at the tables in the middle of the restaurant. Who chooses to sit in the middle of the restaurant? Virgil honestly was contemplating not getting back into the car with him as he was clearly a deranged individual.

“I’m sorry that I don’t like to be _squished_ when I eat,” Roman grumbled, tossing his receipt at Virgil’s face when his number was called, and he stood up to get his food. Virgil’s number was also called a moment later, and Roman went ahead and grabbed his food too while he was up at the counter.

“Thanks,” Virgil said, unwrapping his burger. Roman shot him a thumbs up, mouth already full of the first of his own burgers.

Roman had to eat a bit more than the average person because of his superstrength, though how much more depended on how often he actively used his power. Technically, Virgil also needed to eat more than most. Probably at least a burger more than what he had ordered, but he’d learned to function without over the years. Of course, Logan and Patton usually made him eat enough when they were around. Logan, who tended to burn far more calories than Virgil, knew exactly how much Virgil should be eating and his dads often conspired to make sure he did so. However, he shied away from eating more than average in public still. It was fine, Patton would have snacks for him when he got home, and his soda should fill him up in the meantime.

Virgil ate slowly, knowing Roman would take a bit longer even with how fast he typically ate. He ate about half of his own burger and paused to sip at his drink, chewing on the end of the straw. Virgil wondered if Roman had a second superpower that allowed him to keep food contained in his mouth. He was somehow managing to talk the entire time about the play he was planning to audition for without spitting his food all over Virgil.

He was in the middle of asking Virgil for his opinion on a line for his monologue, wondering if he should say it more angry or sad, when his hand drifted across the table between them and grabbed a French fry from Virgil’s tray.

Virgil just barely managed not to lash out harshly and immediately, biting his tongue until it almost bled while Roman continued on, oblivious.

Food had always been a _thing_ for Virgil. Throughout most of his life before Patton and Logan it had been a scarce resource. He’d spent his youth in large foster families and group homes, and there had always been someone bigger and stronger. When it came to the dinner table, Virgil thought there was probably meant to always be enough to go around, but somehow Virgil always ended up at least a little hungry if not far more than that.

He’d thought he’d been lucky, actually, when he’d ended up getting moved to a foster family where he’d be the only child. He’d been wrong, so very, very wrong, but he had thought so at the time.

So, when Roman took food from his plate, Virgil couldn’t help but freak out. Because, Roman was bigger and stronger than Virgil by a ridiculous amount, which was a fact that Virgil had always known, but had never quite known as much as he did in that moment. He couldn’t help his reaction even though Roman had already pushed his bag of chips across the table, clearly indicating he expected Virgil to take one.

Sharing food was something they’d done many times before, but Roman had always asked first. This was the first instance where it had been unspoken. And he knew. Virgil knew that Roman thought Virgil would understand the transaction taking place. This was just a normal equal exchange like it always was between them when they shared cookies and bags of chips. It was… just silent this time.

It was a silent agreement. It was not a theft. It was not a threat. It was not a microaggression. It was a miscommunication, and Virgil honestly thought it may be less about a mistake on Roman’s part and more about Virgil.

More about the monster inside Virgil. More about the monster that still hid food in his room and stored it in caches around his fathers’ home. The one that still persisted even though he knew his dads would _never._ Even though they’d fed him countless times even when they were mad at him or he got a bad grade on a test. Even though they both kept careful track of his food intake to make sure he wasn’t starving himself out of anxiety. Even though the first interaction Logan had ever had with Virgil was feeding him.

It was that monster that had compelled him to trick Patton and Logan out of nickels and dimes back when he’d first come to live with them, and it prevented him still from giving them that money back, though he’d stopped the stealing almost a year ago. It whispered to him every time when he was walking to look at his feet for money on the ground and convinced him to take a dollar off the top of his allowance every week and store it away. It made him buy energy bars and other snacks to store in his locker and that one secret space he’d found between one of the ceiling fans and the ceiling just so he had something Logan and his detailed kitchen itinerary didn’t know about.

“I don’t hate the monster,” he’d tell Emile later when he recounted this moment and what was going through his head during it. “It’s not evil. It’s just hungry, and it’s hunger kept me from starving many times over.”

For the first time Virgil could remember, he identified the monster before it acted and put it gently back to sleep.

He took a chip from the bag offered to him.


End file.
